Study-Unit Description

Study-Unit Description


CODE LIN1270

 
TITLE Syntax

 
UM LEVEL 01 - Year 1 in Modular Undergraduate Course

 
MQF LEVEL 5

 
ECTS CREDITS 2

 
DEPARTMENT Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology

 
DESCRIPTION Learning Objectives

Since Chomsky’s seminal work in the 50s, syntax has been very much in the centre of interest in linguistic theory. The aim of the study-unit is delineate the domain of syntax by discussing the fundamental concepts involved (phrase structure, syntactic rule), describing and analysing syntactic phenomena (case, agreement) by taking examples from various languages, and introducing students to current models of syntax.

Content Covered

Fundamental concepts in syntax and analytic tools are introduced first, followed by a discussion of specific syntactic phenomena including, among others:
1. word order: free vs. fixed word order (e.g. Maltese Marija ġiet /ġiet Marija vs. English Mary came /*came Mary), as well as other word order types.
2. active/passive constructions: phenomena such as he was seen vs. *He was resembled in English.

Select Bibliography

- Borsely, R. D. 1991 Syntactic Theory: a unified approach. London: Arnold.
- Brown, K. and Jim MILER 1992 Syntax: a linguistic introduction to sentence structure. (2nd edition) London: Routledge
- Chomsky, N. 1957 Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton
- Matthews, P. H. 1984. Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Radford, A. 1981 Transformational Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Radford, A. 1988 Transformational Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Radford, A. 1997 Syntax: a minimalist introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
- Sells, P. 1985. Lectures on Contemporary Syntactic Theories: an introduction to government-binding theory, generalised phrase structure grammar and lexical-functional grammar. Stanford: CSL

 
ADDITIONAL NOTES This Study-Unit LIN1270 is a part of LIN1070.

 
STUDY-UNIT TYPE Lecture

 
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT
Assessment Component/s Sept. Asst Session Weighting
Examination (1 Hour) Yes 100%

 
LECTURER/S Ray Fabri

 

 
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